turboke:And to say my headline that just said "This again" didn't get a greenlight when Voyager 1 absolutely definitely totally left the solar system for sure the last time.

all we can say for sure at this point is that the Voyager 1 team like champagne, and will downright make science up on the spot, in order to justify another couple of crates of bubbly tacked to the budget.

So it left the solar system, then didn't, then did, then didn't again, then did again, now hasn't actually left the solar system? It's like a mental ex-girlfriend. Next week it's show up on my doorstep claiming to be pregnant.

FTA: They say Voyager 1 may be caught in a kind of magnetic portal known as an interstellar flux transfer event.This occurs when the magnetic fields from two different objects briefly become connected through a tube-like magnetic structure. Exactly this process happens between the Earth and Sun's magnetic field every eight minutes or so. It would be no surprise if similar flux transfer events take place regularly between the Sun's field and the interstellar field.

Could someone a little more geeky than me explain how the interstellar field can be considered an object at one end of a tube-like magnetic structure that could form a flux transfer event?

MarkEC:FTA: They say Voyager 1 may be caught in a kind of magnetic portal known as an interstellar flux transfer event.This occurs when the magnetic fields from two different objects briefly become connected through a tube-like magnetic structure. Exactly this process happens between the Earth and Sun's magnetic field every eight minutes or so. It would be no surprise if similar flux transfer events take place regularly between the Sun's field and the interstellar field.

Could someone a little more geeky than me explain how the interstellar field can be considered an object at one end of a tube-like magnetic structure that could form a flux transfer event?

Because the two are separate entities that are just connected by magnetics?/Amature Physicist breaking-bad